


Don’t Take What You Don’t Need (From Me)

by lit_chick08



Series: The Petrova Doppelganger Series [2]
Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lit_chick08/pseuds/lit_chick08
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is Elijah’s curse to fall in love with humans, and it is his burden to watch them be destroyed</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don’t Take What You Don’t Need (From Me)

_**Katerina Petrova, 1492** _

Sometime around his 500th birthday, Elijah stopped seeing humans as anything more than cattle. It is a consequence of an unnaturally long life, he supposed; being able to outlive everything, being stronger than everyone, did not allow for much empathy towards humans. Elijah drank and killed without regret; he was just the bigger, faster, stronger animal which could take down that which was the top of the food chain. 

When Trevor brings her to Klaus’s party, Elijah suddenly remembers humanity. It is more than just a shock to his system; it is the complete rewiring of his body, brought on by familiar brown eyes and the sweetest smile Elijah has ever seen. He has always known the doppelgangers would appear, but he did not expect such perfect imitations. Elijah has seen things which defy explanation a thousand times over, but it is the exact tilt of Katerina’s head as she laughs which makes him wonder at the earth’s mysteries.

She really _isn’t_ like the first Petrova woman he loved. Though her face and her smile and her mannerisms are Tatia’s, Katerina is nowhere near as soft. She is young, yes, and she has the same naiveté all human girls of a certain age possess, but there is a hardness to her spirit which intrigues Elijah. The world has changed thousands of times since Elijah’s birth, but people generally stay the same. Whatever happened to Katerina Petrova before she arrived in England has shaped her into someone who is deeply troubled, and Elijah feels old human habits bubbling to the surface.

Elijah has always wanted to save the girl.

When Klaus invites her to move into the manor, it takes everything in Elijah not to lash out at his brother. Elijah would not have survived his first weeks as a vampire if it was not for Klaus, and he has sworn to remain by his brother’s side until the end of days, but seeing Klaus gifting Katerina with tokens, brushing her hair across her cheek, pressing kisses against her soft skin makes Elijah want to tear into him like the most vicious of animals.

Once, before the curse, Elijah had wanted a horse his father acquired; it was a beautiful animal but wild, desperately in need of training. When Elijah went to his father to ask permission to do so, he discovered the horse was dead, put down after Klaus attempted to break it. Klaus had very little interest in horses, and, when Elijah told the story with confusion to their sister Alexandra, she scoffed.

“He only wanted the horse because you did, because he wanted to show he was as good as you. You know how jealous Klaus can be.” 

Elijah never thought his baby brother’s jealousy would manifest in such a perverse manner.

The first time Elijah has a real conversation with Katerina, Klaus has gone to find a new witch, leaving Katerina to her own devices. Elijah is seated in the room which is used to manage the manor’s affairs, reviewing the earnings of the estate, when Katerina tentatively knocks on the door. She is wearing a bright blue gown made of the finest silk, and Elijah idly wonders if the dress or her skin would be softer.

“Excuse me, milord, but will you be joining me for dinner?” 

Klaus does not allow Katerina to eat with the other humans who frequent the manor; he keeps her hidden away like a favorite toy, and Elijah can read the loneliness in her eyes. His brother only allows Elijah and their other siblings access to Katerina; they are the only people Klaus trusts with _his_ doppelganger. Elijah knows he can dismiss Katerina, suggest she find Darya who will converse with her in Bulgarian and play at being human with her, but Elijah knows his sisters make Katerina uncomfortable.

“I would be honored,” he replies as he gets to his feet, offering his arm to her.

Katerina blushes as she rests her hand upon his elbow, and Elijah aches for the simple rituals of human courtship. There is no challenge in bedding women as a vampire; a simple compulsion could fix every problem which may arise, and Elijah rarely wants to deal with the insipidness of human females.

Elijah promises himself he will _never_ compel Katerina.

“Tell me a story, Katerina,” he requests after they have finished their meals, glasses of wine in their hands.

“What would you like to hear?”

“How did you come to be in England?”

The playful smile on her face dissipates as she stares down into her wine, swirling it around her cup. There is pain and anger in her face, and the gentleman within Elijah encourages him to rescind the question, to apologize for being intrusive; but Elijah cannot help but wonder at Katerina.

Finally, after several long minutes of silence, she asks, “You will not think less of me?”

He immediately shakes his head. “I could not.”

“I dishonored my family. I lied with a man who was not my husband, and I brought shame upon our home.” Swallowing the rest of her wine, she shrugs with a painful wince, the faint hint of tears in her eyes. “It does not matter now, I suppose. They do not want me so I do not want them.”

“You lie,” Elijah contradicts without malice.

Katerina bristles. “Excuse me?”

“There is nothing more powerful on this earth than family. The rejection by people you love can cripple you for the rest of your life.”

Katerina studies him for a moment, a tender expression crossing her features. “Klaus once told me there are seven of you, seven Originals.”

“That is correct.”

“But I have only met six. Where is the seventh?”

This time it was Elijah’s turn to wince. “Our sister…Alexandra…She elected not to remain with us after the turning. She…It was too much for her.”

“She did not want to be a vampire?”

“We did not what we were in the beginning; there was not a word for it. And Lex…She was everything remarkable about humanity. Her heart could not take it, being confined to the darkness, being cursed for the actions of others.”

“Is she still alive?”

Elijah pours himself more wine. “Mikael saw her a few decades ago in Spain but she has no interest in being with us, me specifically.”

Katerina smiles sadly. “So you know what it is like to lose the love of someone dear.”

Klaus was the only one who did not blame him for their curse. While his other siblings did not despise him the way Alexandra did, none of them had ever truly forgiven him for his transgression with Tatia. And all of them were eagerly awaiting the sacrifice of Katerina beneath the full moon.

“If you live long enough, Katerina, you know what it is like to lose everything.”

“You make being a vampire sound like the loneliest existence. Klaus describes it as…transcendent.”

Elijah frowns. “Do you want to be a vampire, Katerina?”

She shrugs, tucking the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth. “I have not done so well for myself as a human. Klaus says after the ritual, he will turn me if I like.”

Elijah struggles not to curse at the easy trust she has put in his brother. He knows Katerina will not survive the ritual; he has already gone to Klaus to discuss the elixir he has found which would save her life, and Klaus has already dismissed it out of hand. There will be no life – mortal or otherwise – for Katerina Petrova come the full moon.

It makes Elijah ache with inaction.

“You should not give away your humanity so easily. It is precious.”

Katerina scoffs with a roll of her eyes. “I see the way the humans are treated here, Elijah, and it is not care and preciousness with which you treat them.”

“Katerina – “

“I do not wish to be at the whims of others for the rest of my life,” she confesses, wisdom as ancient as Elijah in her voice as her English accent slips, Bulgaria reasserting itself with every syllable. “I do not enjoy making my way by being on my back.”

It is the first truly honest thing Elijah has ever heard Katerina say, and it breaks his heart at how criminally low she has undervalued herself.

“I should retire,” she sighs, pushing to her feet, her voice now perfectly even, a decent imitation of Elijah’s own accent firmly in place. “Thank you for joining me, Elijah. I appreciate the company.”

As she walks past his chair, Elijah catches her wrist. Katerina stops, turning her head to meet his gaze, confusion on her brow. He is not sure what to do now that he has her in place; his throat burns with the words he has been forced to swallow; his skin itches for the press of hers against it. As he wrestles with the desire to confess his wants and the fear of damning himself with another Petrova woman, Katerina smiles, her hand rising as her fingers push through Elijah’s hair.

“The way you look at me breaks my heart,” she admits, tenderness in her touch. She traces the arch of his eyebrow, the line of his nose, the cut of his jaw; Elijah struggles to remain still at her perusal, to not lean into her touch like a cat.

“The way you look at Klaus breaks mine,” he counters matter-of-factly.

She cups his face in her palms as she whispers, so soft no other vampire would be able to hear, “Come to me tonight.”

To lie with Katerina would be a betrayal of his brother, of what they have worked towards since the night Tatia’s blood sealed their fate.

Elijah finds himself nodding anyway.

When he silently slips into her chamber, she is warming herself by the fire, and, for a horrible moment, Elijah is human again, watching the flames play across Tatia’s face; and then Katerina senses him, turning with a smile which is pure seduction, and Elijah remembers she is _not_ Tatia, she is Katerina.

She wears only her shift, her hair loose around her shoulders, and she looks achingly young and unbearably _human_ , especially when she blushes so prettily under the heat of his gaze.

Elijah feels her tremble when he kisses her, and, when she sighs softly against his lips, he chokes back a declaration of love. Instead he occupies his mouth by exploring every inch of her body, spreading her out against the sheets, dark hair and sun-kissed skin against white. He begins to catalogue her responses in his expansive memory; he forces himself not to consider this may be the only time he will get to use the knowledge he acquires, the only time he will ever be able to have her like this.

She inhales sharply if he kisses her throat where the blood rushes powerfully; she giggles if he draws blunt teeth across her ribs on the way to her breasts; she twists her hips restlessly if he presses cool, wet kisses against her inner thighs. 

Elijah traverses her body three times before he allows her to undress him, and he chuckles at the impatience she brings to the task, which only makes her face fold into the most amusing display of consternation.

“Oh, it is funny to tease?” she quips, pushing at his shoulders to indicate she wants him to lie back. “Let us see how you enjoy it.”

Elijah raises an eyebrow in silent challenge before settling back into the pillows, allowing her to do as she wishes. He cannot help the adolescent shiver which wracks his body as she trails whisper soft fingertips down his torso, deliberately ignoring the hardness between his thighs.

“The first night you met me,” she begins, her thumb circling his hip bone idly, “why did you not ask me to stay?”

“Because Trevor brought you for Klaus,” he answers, inhaling sharply as her lips lower to kiss the path her thumb was making, her long hair brushing against his sensitized skin.

“But Klaus has never looked at me the way you do. He doesn’t _want_ me; he only wants what my blood will give him.” She shifts slightly, kissing his other hip bone. “But you want _me_ , Katerina. Why?”

“You need reasons?”

She ducks her head, momentarily lost behind her hair, before she raised her head to meet his gaze. “I do not wish to be the means by which you strike at Klaus.”

“I would not use you in such a way.”

“All anyone _ever_ does is use me.”

Elijah moves inhumanely fast, spinning Katerina onto her back, his body poised above hers. Katerina does not flinch from the speed, and Elijah wonders how often Klaus has used his power in the bedroom, how often he has hurt her for the sport of it, because he _can_ , because Katerina Petrova has not a single person in the world.

“I swear to you I will let no harm come to you by Klaus’s hand as a result of my actions.”

Katerina stares up at him with large, tear swollen eyes, a shaky exhalation escaping her lips. “You should not make promises you cannot keep.”

He kisses her with every ounce of tenderness in his body, unused for nearly a thousand years. “I will keep that promise with my last breath.”

They make love twice that night, Katerina curling sweetly around his body afterwards, proclamations of love on her lips, whispered against the planes of his chest.

A week later, he is tracking her through the forest, heartbreak and betrayal making every word he speaks full of bile.

* * *

**_Katherine Pierce, 2011_ **

She brings Damon to the boardinghouse, the practiced look of bored detachment on her pretty face. Elijah smells the wolf bite already festering at the crook of the elder Salvatore’s elbow, but he can also detect the scent of charred flesh; as Katherine steps into the lights on the Salvatore porch, Elijah makes out the fresh skin.

There was a reason he compelled her to remain in the tomb; Elijah knew what Klaus would do if he ever got his hands on her.

She smacks into the invisible barrier at the front door, Damon sailing past both of them to find Stefan, to strategize how they will get Elena back.

“Elena is now the owner of this home,” he supplies at her confused expression, noticing the supreme irritation which replaces the confusion.

“Of course she is,” Katherine spits, leaning against the doorframe. “Was she christened Queen of the World while I was being held hostage too?”

“Jealousy is unbecoming in a woman of your age.”

Katherine glares at him before stiffening, undoubtedly with the realization he has just as much reason to want to kill her as Klaus does. “So are we going to do this or what?”

Elijah blinks, bewildered.

“What’s it going to be?” she continues, her words a little faster, a little more manic. “Torture? Desiccation? Decapitation?” When he says nothing, she begs, “Just do it!”

He steps outside the door, taking hold of her face in his hands. “Did Klaus compel you to come to me?”

She swallows hard, tears welling in her the doe eyes which had captured him effortlessly 500 years earlier. “I was to pull the dagger from your chest and accept my punishment. He said you will make me wish for the 250 years of torture he promised me.”

There is genuine terror in her eyes, and, for a moment, Elijah can see the true Katerina, the helpless girl ensnared in his family’s twisted web, the girl they had driven to become the monster who damned the Salvatores and countless others.

“I will not kill you, Katerina.” Brushing a tear away with his thumb, he says, “I swore to you once I would not allow you to be cannon fodder for Klaus and me; I meant that. You are free to go.”

He steps back, releasing her and breaking his gaze, and Katherine remains frozen, as if she is uncertain this is a trick.

“Why would you keep a promise you made 500 years ago to a girl who betrayed you?”

“Because it was a promise, and a man does not go back on his word.”

Katherine stares unblinking for a moment before softly declaring, “I didn’t know what else to do.”

Elijah assumes this is as close as he will ever get to an apology, to her tacit admission she is the primary reason he and his brother will battle to the death in a few hours.

“The past cannot be undone,” is all he offers with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Katherine nods shortly, wiping at her face, her face returning to its usual emotionless state. “I suppose you’re going to go fight for the fair Elena like everyone else.”

Elijah does not answer.

“Klaus could kill you,” she continues, crossing her arms across her chest. “Is she worth that?”

He leans into her and, keeping his voice as detached as she makes her, he confides, “I would have done the same for you.”

And then Elijah enters the house, closing the door on Katherine’s crumbling face, needing to focus on how he was going to keep Elena from becoming Katherine.


End file.
